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The Bigger Picture: Visual Archives and the Smithsonian

Archive: 06/2010

See Here: 6/30/2010

by The Bigger Picture on June 30, 2010

David Scott, Harry Lowe, and Harold Cross restore a Stuart Davis mural at the National Collection of Fine Arts, now the National Museum of American Art, 1965, by Unknown photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 314 Box 30 Folder 1, Negative Number: 95-20301.

Categories: Collections in Focus
Tags: See Here, Artist, Conservation, Behind the Scenes
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Check!

by Tammy L. Peters on June 29, 2010

Fremont Davis (1915-1977), Date unknown, by Unidentified photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970. It's always satisfying to put a big check mark next to a completed task, and this month we completed the huge task of digitizing all the images in our collection of Science Service records (Accession 90-105). We've talked about this collection before, most recently during the past two celebrations of Women's History Month. Julian Schwinger (1918-1994), c. 1920s-1970s, by Unidentified photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970s. Science Service, a syndicated news service that distributed news stories about science, kept a large morgue file of past stories, clippings and photographs that they would file for reference and re-use. We started scanning images from this collection in September 2007, relying solely on interns and volunteers to chip away at the photos. Note that we weren't scanning from this collection every day, and we had no real idea of exactly how many photos were in the accession, but we knew they had wide-ranging value. The images document the international scientific community of the 20th Century, and they include numerous Nobel laureates, men and women of all scientific disciplines, Science Service staff, and more. Our final count is 9,370 digitized images. Linus Carl Pauling (1901-1994), American chemist, peace activist and author, won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize, c. 1920s-1970s, by Unidentified photographer, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Acc. 90-105 - Science Service, Records, 1920s-1970s. Soon after she started, the first intern we assigned to this project, Amanda Radmacher, dubbed this the "dead white guy's collection," as men have dominated in the area of science. That’s a lot of dead white guys. Next, we need to better describe the images and get them online. This will be a long process, too. However, we're starting with the "low-hanging fruit," and pushing on, also hopefully developing a more automated method for placing the images on the web. I want to make sure to mention the other eight interns and volunteers who helped us get here:  Carrie Tallichet, Caroline Yee, Deborah Khuanglawn, Dara Taylor, Emily Hagens, Erin Townsend, Krystal Thomas, and Tywanna Janies. And I want to mention the contributions of Marcel LaFollette, who has written a bunch of the captions, and Ariel Segal who is researching the images and adding index terms to our system. Many thanks to all of you! And to everyone else, go check out a big portion of these images on the Smithsonian's Collections Search Center, as well as our new Science Service set on the Flickr Commons.

Categories: Collections in Focus
Tags: American History, Science, Archive, Digitization
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See Here: 6/29/2010

by The Bigger Picture on June 29, 2010

Carol Burnett, with the charwoman costume that she donated to National Museum of American History. At the presentation ceremony, Burnett honored a reporters request and bellowed out her famous Tarzan yell, 1988, by Jeff Tinsley, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 371 Box 5 Folder July 1988, Negative Number: 88-10751-23A.

Categories: Collections in Focus
Tags: See Here, Entertainment, Behind the Scenes
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See Here: 6/28/2010

by The Bigger Picture on June 28, 2010

Voyager, the first aircraft to fly around the world without landing or refueling, is being lifted into place in the south gallery of the National Air and Space Museum (NASM), The craft, which has a wingspan of 108 feet, was separated into five sections and transported from the Paul E. Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland, through the streets of Washington in the dead of night, 1987, by Mark Avino, Photographic print, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Record Unit 371 Box 5 Folder January 1988, Negative Number: 87-16212-12.

Categories: Collections in Focus
Tags: See Here, Exhibitions, World History, Behind the Scenes
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Happy Birthday!

by The Bigger Picture on June 27, 2010

Happy Birthday to Happy Birthday! On Sometime around this date in 1893 sisters Patty and Mildred J. Hill, who were both elementary school teachers in Louisville, Kentucky, first published “Happy Birthday to You”—one of the most iconic and popular songs in the English Language. Apparently, this makes June 27th “Happy Birthday Day,” so let sounds of that popular ditty roll around in your brain while you browse through some of the Smithsonian’s birthday-related collections . . .


Lillian Cooper birthday party, June 27, 1957, by Scurlock Studio (Washington, D.C.), Silver gelatin on cellulose acetate film sheet, National Museum of American History, Archives Center, Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Call No.: AC0618.004.0001146.










Categories: Collections in Focus
Tags: American History, slideshow
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